Converged company signals its imminent end

Alderac Entertainment Company has been a bit converged for awhile, but was still attempting to focus on making good games, and having a measure of success with that. Yesterday they made an announcement regarding its big convention event(GenCon, PAX Unplugged, and a few others), Big Game Night. For their 2020 Big Game Night events, they’re looking for games from women designers.

Before any idiot thinks that I don’t think women can make good games, that’s not true. But WHY THE CRAP SHOULD IT MATTER? Either the game is fun, or it isn’t. Some of the Virtue Signallers went to the trouble of making a geeklist of games with women designers, omitting in many cases the male co-designers. But if AEG wants something that will sell long term, it’s a path they will actually avoid. Almost all of the popular designers are men. And yes, people do buy games just based on the designer.

But let’s look at the hobby itself. Most of the players are in fact, men, likely somewhere between 2/3 and 80%. Especially when you’re talking about people that actually seek out new and complex games. Most game players don’t try to take apart mechanics and see how they fit together, though; they tend to try to understand this game that they’re playing now(This is aside from teaching games, a somewhat different skill). Some try to understand the mechanics, but don’t develop a vocabulary for it. Others figure out how the pieces fit together, and like to discuss them. And the smallest set is those that actively design games(mechanically, not graphically necessarily).

I used to like AEG, even when they literally stepped away from making games I wanted to play. But why should I bother if they’re going the “women who code” route? Even if they get the games they want NOW, they probably have to spend the next whole year rebalancing it and finding balance issues. Maybe they can get the games done in time. Or maybe they’ll end up with a nice train wreck of money lost on rights and development and graphics.

And AEG joins Renegade on the list of companies I’m not buying from anymore.